


Life Imitates Art

by calerine



Category: Arashi (Band), Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: alcohol mention - Warning
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calerine/pseuds/calerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sort of AU in which Arashi is Arashi but Nino is a Hipster and Jun loves teen pop. Somehow they make their relationship work. Also Subaru has a record store.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Imitates Art

**Author's Note:**

> For Sharl. Huge thanks to H who put up with my incessantly incoherent emails. 
> 
>  
> 
> **Please put[this mix](http://beertoface.livejournal.com/9618.html) on while you read.**

It’s on the evening of his thirtieth birthday that Jun realises. ****

They’re tucked away in a back booth of his local Italian place, dusk a powdery indigo outside. Cotton-candy pink streaks lounge across the skyline while streets ignite lamps.

Sho’s laughing, overwhelmingly and belly-achingly, the sound overlapping with Aiba’s high-pitched giggles. Jun isn’t sure what they’re laughing at, but it’s one of those moments in which he feels detached, like he’s outside looking in; a passerby perhaps, who just happened upon a gnocchi bar with five guys arguing over how to best eat linguini.

Nino turns to meet his eyes for a moment, his hand on Jun’s knee and his shoulder pressed up against Aiba’s, who has started choking in the midst of his slurping demonstration. Ohno on the other side of the table, is making a porcupine on his plate. He pushes leftover strands of pasta and lumps of gnocchi (borrowed from Sho) around with his fork.

It is then that it hits Jun. He swallows, looks around the table at each of them in turn. The previous decade and a half are a surreal, curious blur and Jun isn’t quite sure how he’s somehow ended up 1) in a boyband for fifteen years, and 2) dating a massive hipster.

He watches Nino rub at his eyes, hooking his fingers under his spectacles. Then Aiba tells Ohno that his ArtSta - that’s what they decided is ‘artistic pasta’ - looks like a sun, and Nino flicks him in the forehead.

Well, Number One is traceable enough. Aiba does it enough for the rest of them - on national television between one innocuous question and the next. (Nino has gotten so adept at jumping in to direct the audience’s attention to That One Time Aiba Accidentally Shaved His Eyebrows Off And Had To Spend Weeks Drawing In Crooked Ones). Then, on late nights after the beer has flowed freely and Aiba has tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, fingers clutched around a slippery bottleneck while he’s in 1999, on a boat in Hawaii.

For Number Two however - the details are a muddle.

Jun remembers only faintly, catching on in the third month of Nino’s Seven Month Plan. He’d woken up one morning and realized that his favourite striped cardigan had not in fact been in the wash for two weeks. It was gone, along with every other Small size of his entire cardigan collection. (It had been two very busy weeks, but still.)

Reflectively, he could kind of remember Nino moving them into each other’s homes. The details were all fuzzy so he sat down one evening and picked out all the points in time that Nino had worn his clothes out in the mornings and never given them back, touching the edges of those memories like a game of retrospective _Where’s Wally_.

It turned out that Nino had been squirreling Jun’s cardigans away for months. He’d taken to wearing them defiantly on top of wardrobe choices on TV - even if it meant Double Cardiganing - much to the resignation of their wardrobe staff. (To their credit, no one really noticed either because they were all used to seeing Nino in increasingly ridiculous clothes.)

But then Jun let Nino go on anyway, because he decided he liked waking up to their mismarried limbs on Nino’s grey sheets. To him, his toothbrush reclining on the edge of Nino’s sink was worth wearing a few loose cardigans. Although he pretended otherwise, he liked the contained clutter of Nino’s game consoles by the Bluray player under his TV, and that extra jar of pickled ginger in his refrigerator that made the second shelf look less empty.

After a while, Jun learnt that it suited them; not meeting for days then falling into bed together after a long week with different stories on their lips and their fingers curling into threadbare shirts, already pulling each other close. He likes that it’s simple with Nino. They decide on things to hate together and other things they’re happy loving apart.

But other _other_ things (long midday phone calls during peak hour traffic and refusing to lose at board games), they are better together.

*

“I guess it couldn’t be helped,” Aiba rationalizes, while they wait for filming to start. It’s far too early for whatever bright-eyed hypothesis he has.

Sho’s got his cap pulled down low. Jun knows Sho tries to nap whenever he is running on too little sleep and Aiba is proposing a potential day-long Experiment Of Import. (It’s been years, and he’s only ever succeeded in _pretending_ he’s asleep.)

Now Aiba counts off his fingers as if this was some inevitable fate that the entire Johnny’s Entertainment had been careening towards. “Ohno-kun does his own thing, and animals are _far_ too mainstream to be hipster, right? Sho-kun is just too _supernova next to the door to care_.” Ohno snorts. “And Matsujun… If you bottled Matsujun up, you’d get gold powder and Italian food, I mean. He’s just stylish, isn’t he? Ah, I guess Nino had to be the hipster one among us.”

Of course, Nino chooses that moment to slouch in, his flair for the dramatic only nurtured by idolhood. His sunglasses are nearly larger than his head. He looks like an idiot.

Today he’s rocking the Recluse Look of Autumn’14; a ridiculously worn Bioware t-shirt and Adventure Time snapback. Cupped protectively in his hands is his mustard KeepCup with 250 milliliters of steaming single blend, fair-trade pour over.

He makes a peace sign and flops down on the couch beside Ohno.

Jun reaches over to steal some of his coffee, ignoring Nino’s dark grumble about his champagne tastes.

Aiba seems to take it as A Sign. He nods sagely and intones, “We should have seen this coming, really.”

Sho snores; extra loud for good measure.

*

It’s really no big deal. Nino collects records, is all.

It’s just another thing he does, in addition to persisting with gaming marathons on his Famicon despite it crashing every two hours, and squinting so hard at train timetables through his thick black-rimmed glasses so no one notices it’s Ninomiya Kazunari, idol and idiot-magnet.

His flat has two rooms, the most one can afford in Tokyo nowadays really, Johnny’s or not. One room for when Jun comes over to drool all over his pillows, with two air-conditioners that are apparently “luxury personified”, to quote Aiba. The other holds his records. All nine hundred and three of them - Nino knows; Jun likes to impress him by keeping count.

Well, _and_ he’s got a system of organisation that Sho has spent two years trying to figure out. He hasn’t succeeded yet, but he still calls Nino with speculations every so often, hissing excitedly in his fancy news anchor office until Nino knows exactly when his co-workers glare because Sho’s voice goes all soft and guilty and Nino hangs up first to save him the elaborate show of phone etiquette.

Plus it’s not like Nino spends money on many things. Whatever he can get someone else to pay for, he does - snacks with Aiba and dinners with Nakai. Other things, he steals - all of Sho’s pens, Matsujun’s clothes.

Nino has an iPod too, of course. He’s pretty sure Jun would spontaneously combust if he didn’t. It’s chock full of obscure bands and songs with titles varying between extremely lengthy or post-modern vagueness. He doesn’t bring it many places sure, but he has one and it is the thought that counts.

Vinyl though, vinyl is something else entirely.

There’s just _something_ about it, Nino likes to say, pausing dramatically before he delivers his grand statement.

Vinyl _gets_ him.

After all, he hasn’t given up precious entire weekday mornings for nothing. He hasn’t taken the train to Shibutani’s (the man himself still _tsks_ every time Nino calls him Subaru) in Shibuya for just another album exported to .aac and stored in someone’s iTunes.

Climb the eternal dingy stairs to the tiny fifth story shop that overlooks a Daiso and a _combini_ , to sit on the dust carpet of a floor for hours on end. In the corner, the quiet crackling of Baru’s original Planer 3 scratches out Fitzgerald until Nino’s humming _we all have a blue room, a new room for two room the entire way home_. He always leaves with fingertips stained with newspaper wrapping and the insides of his lungs lined with dust that makes him sneeze for days.

It’s is a tiny operation with Ryo on the till, unless he has band practice or a(n unlikely) date, then there’s Maruyama whose laughter tends to echo forever in the small space. He reminds Nino far too much of Aiba; it’s dangerous to have two of them existing in Japan at the same time. Subaru on the other hand seems content to lurk in the backroom, appearing whenever Nino least expects.

But mostly it’s just Ryo, crouched behind a slip of manga, some 60s underground ska, and shit-talk that makes Nino late for filming. Jun has taken to narrowing his eyes pointedly at him across the room as if Nino can help not being late.

(Well, he can but that’s not the point.)

*

Nino is what Aiba calls The Ultimate Hipster, or THE Ultimatus Hipsterus.

“That’s in Latin, which makes it true” he says gravely, proving his point by laser-pointing at charts stuck to Nino’s 51” television screen, while his left hand cradles a Kirin. (He takes his advertising gigs very seriously.)

It is _beyond_ Nino why anyone still lets Aiba Masaki near multi-coloured markers or lasers; he’ll take over the world with them one day, along with his army of Pavlovian wolves. Only he’ll probably call the “Masakian wolves” and condition them to the chorus of A.RA.SHI.. Nino is in favour of an alarm going off every time Aiba tries to buy something for Science. But he might also be a little drunk.

“Vinyl,” Aiba is saying while he gestures expansively to the general area of Nino’s flat as if that explains everything. On the couch Oh-chan leans into Jun, his cheeks flushed and eyelids fighting to stay open. “What more, Nino doesn’t even get his records from Disk Union; it _has_ to be Subaru’s.”

Nino rolls his eyes, slapping his arm over his face. Aiba hasn’t even met Subaru and already he’s forgone last names. Besides, Nino doesn’t need anyone to validate his hipsterness. Much less Aiba Masaki, who still mistakes his air-conditioner remote for his phone.

Sho squints at one of the discarded charts on the ground. “Masaki,” he says, bewildered. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but the entire top right quarter of this paper is your to-do list. See it says, ‘buy toilet paper’.” He taps on the paper. “Plus I’m don’t think ‘gets along well with many people’ is any basis for hipsterism,” and Aiba tugs at his hair sheepishly, already making lacklustre excuses.

Across the couch, Jun giggles into Leader’s hair, loud and unadulterated. The sound catches Nino off guard.

He’s still blinking in surprise when they make eye contact a minute later, his cheeks aching from that sudden grin. Jun only laughs like that when they’re alone or on camera.

Jun must have seen something in his face for he retrieves his limbs from the tangle of Ohno’s and his, his expression thoughtful and morose in kind. Nino watches him retreat into the Record Room.

(If he had their Leader’s talent, he would have filled entire rooms with sketches of that gait by now. He would have mapped out the lines of those hips, all those hollows that his hands have discovered from years of study.) His fingers in his lap twitch reflexively.

The atmosphere in the room changes. Aiba starts rolling up his countless sheets of mahjong paper, crumpling a lot of corners in the process. Sho switches the TV on whilst complains about the streaks of tape left dangling around the frame. He doesn’t move to unstick them though, only prods Aiba’s butt with his toes when he lingers too long in his line of vision.

Nino closes his eyes for a second. He can hear Aiba chuckling breathlessly, mumbling nonsense-somethings to Sho – or to the TV, he can’t tell. They’re all just the other side of tipsy, the world blurring a little around the edges of things, like Ohno’s drawing of a bonito when Sho accidentally spilled steaming green tea on it.

Then Leader’s squishing up close to him, slumping so Nino has to push back up until they’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.

“I’m going to call Sho-chan to come over if you start crying, okay.” Nino warns with his eyes closed. He’s just saying that but he wouldn’t, really. Fifteen years hit him at inordinate moments too; he gets it.

“I understand,” Ohno murmurs instead, quiet. Nino opens his eyes halfway, breathes slow before he remembers. “It’s the same with me and fishing. It’s always good to find something or someone who gets you.”

Nino pets the back of Ohno’s hand. “You’re drunk, Leader,” he says but puts his head on Ohno’s shoulder anyway, nudging their knees together.

And if he hears it when Jun emerges ten minutes later, door hinges creaking and draughts of Lucy Rose nipping at his heels, it definitely wasn’t because he was listening so intently for something - or someone - that got him.

*

They’re scheduled for filming the next day. Jun has been unnaturally excited all week, planning his outfit in advance and convincing the staff that they’ll drive themselves there.

It is four a.m. in the morning and a miracle that Jun is out of bed, even.

The world is quiet.

Nino closes his eyes for a bleary second. He imagines that voice, Matsumoto Jun’s, made ethereal in this before-morning light of street lamps and neon signs, ringing out on every speaker in the nation: OLs blinking sleepily as it, staticky and thrilled, rattles out on the _shinkansen_ , on all the car radios of the people travelling overnight to get home, going _And then Sho-chan would probably have thrown his umbrella at that guy, you could see it in his eyes!_

“You know, it’s like you’ve never gone to Nihon TV before,” Nino cuts in, balancing his chin on a propped-up hand. Those images shuffle around a bit in his head now, suddenly embarrassed to be found there.

Jun slips and almost impales himself on the bread knife. But he then flips it stylishly before setting it down. He probably learnt that on the set of _Chocolatier_ or something. It’s far too early for Nino to gather up any shreds of impressed feeling.

Not too early though, for Jun to level him with a Look.

“J please, it’s four a.m,” Nino groans, giving up all impressions of dignity to flop bonelessly on the coffee table. He watches Jun’s puffy grey house slippers shuffle near, feels the clinks of Nino’s coffee mug, Jun’s usual spinach juice, and a plate of madeleines and toast on the table. Nino immediately latches on, digging his cold toes into the crooks of Jun’s knees.

Nino’s known Jun for long enough that he _feels_ Jun narrow his eyes. “You can’t have not read that memo,” he says, his voice on the edge of disapproving. There’s a deep sinking feeling at the bottom of Nino’s stomach as he watches Jun’s double chins work around a mouthful of crust. So he steals some of Jun’s spinach juice and makes a disgusted face - a pre-emptive strike for whatever unforeseeable circumstance that the day holds. Nino will take what he can get.

It turns out that the day held approximately three and a half cans of hairspray, Aiba turning up late because he was distracted by his favourite ramen place having 20% off, and Matsumoto Jun blushing six times in the presence of one Zayn Malik.

Nino’s never seen Jun make heart eyes so intensely at anyone before. And he would have managed to ask Zayn out for soba too, if Aiba hadn’t gone _he’s GETTING married soon, MaTSUjun_ in an approximation of a stage whisper and emphatically on all the weird bits.

Sho practiced all his questions in advance.

Nino grudgingly sat through all Sho’s questions with piece of cardboard around his neck that read HARRY STYLES. Jun had been ZAYN MALIK, Ohno LIAM PAYNE, Aiba NIALL HORAN and the LOUIS TOMLINSON board had sat forlornly on the couch. For a while Sho had worn it but he soon got tired of having to ask and answer questions in such quick succession.

Now he asks _the style of FOUR is different from your previous albums, what did you want to do new this time around, do you have any messages for your Japanese fans,_ the English words almost water on his tongue. (More like red bean paste really but Nino’s being sentimental here.)

Between takes, Aiba tries to teach the One Direction members how to play Magical Banana until they all realise that it won’t work out. So he shows them _Manabu_ clips on his phone of the time he and their Leader went fishing and found wild parsley, as well as all the pictures of his budding herb garden. No one knows if they’re just being polite but Niall goes _I’m going to instagram this!_

Aiba looks over his shoulder as he makes a collage of these pictures: the audience, Aiba’s coriander sprouts, their AD’s cue cards and the ten of them, complete with peace signs and matching grins. At the end of the recording, Niall shows them the post. It’s gotten over three hundred thousand Likes by then, and Ohno says _oh! That’s about the size of five - six Kokoritsus!_

Nino pokes him in his side. “Are we still using Kokoritsus as units of measurements,” He complains, not seriously at all.

While their translators clamour to explain the sheer magnitude of it, Sho pulls up the wikipedia page and Jun, clips of concert fancams on YouTube.

“Our Matsumoto does all the planning for our concerts,” Sho explains. There’s that pride in his voice that has Nino jumping in to joke about Aiba and Ohno’s matching tans so Jun gets to bask in their praise for just that moment longer.

*

“Tell me the truth. Is it because you both have strong faces?” Nino asks that night as Jun turns down the duvet.

He hasn’t decided if he’s jealous yet because Jun has never made that face at Nino before; wide-eyed, admiring and hoping to impress. His gut spasms a little whenever he thinks about it.

So he concentrates on how Jun actually makes hospital corners with his sheets. Nino has spent a lot of effort trying to figure out if he just does it only when Nino comes over or if it’s just a way of life for him. After all, Jun is the sort of person who has two juicers and knows how to make yoghurt from scratch. Really, it wouldn’t a surprise.

Jun makes an _eh?_ face as if they’re still on Shiyagare and Aiba’s just said something completely random like _Matsujun, it’s not fair that Nino-chan’s seen your house and I haven’t_. Nino sits on the top of the covers and it’s simultaneously a defiance and uncertainty now.

Jun doubles over in mirth and Nino watches him laugh for ten minutes, his lip caught between his teeth and his hands fisted in the starched sheets.

*

The next morning, there is fresh coffee in the microwave and heart-shaped pancakes on the dining table, underneath a food tent. They are still warm.

Nino goes through his YouTube subscriptions before he ambles over to the fridge. The hem of Jun’s too-long pyjama pants drag on floor tiles. _Hello Everything_ ’s beginning strains waft upwards to find form in the pale morning light.

The whiteboard on the fridge reads “KIMI wa my soul soul” and “You know I like you best”, printed carefully in Jun’s neat handwriting alongside little stick-Arashi in their appropriate colours. He’s even given them nipples through their costumes.

 

*

 

 **13 Nov 14, 7:50**  
 **To** : Atsujun <matsumotojun@jannizu.co.jp>  
 **From** : ninomiyak@jannizu.co.jp

you’re such a girl

 

  

 **13 Nov 2014, 7:51  
** To: Ninomiya Kazunori  <ninomiyak@jannizu.co.jp>  
 **From** : matsumotojun@jannizu.co.jp

No, I am a star.

 

 

*

In the following week, Jun adopts a habit of putting One Direction’s tour DVD on while he’s cooking, so Nino ends up walking in at six different points of _What Makes You Beautiful_ in five days.

It’s inevitable that by Monday, he has mastered lip-syncing to the entire song, progressing soon after to dance moves. His motto becomes “If they can, I will too” though he tells no one of it.

“You’re an idiot,” Ryo and Subaru both agree when they next see him and he shows them the choreography of _Best Song Ever_ between the ska and acoustic shelves, including some of his own additions. Just five minutes ago, Maruyama had sang himself out when he left. His extremely high-pitched rendition of _Kiss You_ might haunt the insides of Nino’s ears for all eternity.

“Don’t you think this is the most insufferable title possible,” Nino diverts, his lip curling derisively as he turns the CD over in his hands. It is now Thursday and he may have spent three nights watching One Direction interview clips on YouTube. He’s past the point of doubt. Actually, he has long been past all points of anything.

And if not for the four shots of coffee he’d had that morning, he’d probably be face-down in the Nihon TV building, somewhere. “Anyway,” he continues, ignoring the fact that Ryo is devoting more concentration to peeling his fourth mikan of the evening than listening, “their choreography is nothing compared to Arashi’s, seriously. They’re always just standing around and hugging and smiling, we’ve been doing that on late night TV since 2003.”

Subaru fixes him with a dead-eyed stare. “You need an intervention, Ninomiya.”

“No I’m nOT,” he cackles, letting out a laugh that sounds like a touch too hysterical for comfort.

Subaru sends him home with SMAP, Vienna Teng and Goose House and the stern words of “there is nothing wrong with liking a boy band, Nino.”

*

Jun decides to try vegetarianism.

Nino couldn’t write it off as a surprise even if he tried, even if Jun does spring the announcement on him as they’re having dinner one evening.

“Is that why we’re eating in Roppongi?” Nino asks after a prolonged beat, raising a pointed eyebrow.

Jun ducks his head, bashfulness out of place in the glaring lights of golds and reds in this Chinese restaurant. It makes Nino want to reach across the table and intertwine their hands. Instead he settles for touching their shoes together, sliding down a little in his seat so their knees press up.

Tucking his ankles into the hook of Nino’s, Jun relaxes. Their waitress brings them their order of glazed vegetables and mock pork. Chunks of cashews are scattered around the plate artfully.

“Nagano-san recommended this place,” Jun explains. Then he sets down his chopsticks, “I’ll still buy meat for when you come over, and we can still go to that bar you wanted.” Jun’s face is stern, serious and in a flash of clarity, Nino understands.

“Jun-kun, you _know_ me. Food is not as important to me as it is to you, okay? I’m happy to eat whatever you make,” Nino pushes the last braised mushroom to Jun’s side of the serving plate. “As long as you’re paying, of course,” he adds and the lines between Jun’s brows smooth out.

“You’re the _worst_ ,” Jun grumbles despite the fact that he’s piling Nino’s side plate high with steamed bak choy.

“It’s all part of my charm. But, consider this,” Nino replies. “ _YasaiJun_.”

Jun kicks his shin. The sharp bit of his boots hurts a lot. “I’ll kill you.”

Let no one say Ninomiya Kazunari is one to turn down a challenge. He ends up calling Jun YasaiJun for weeks until it catches on and a magazine that interviews them headlines them as YasaiJun and His YasaiBoiz.

“You’re the hipster in Arashi,” Aiba tells him, consulting a clipboard Nino hadn’t noticed before. “It makes no sense that you’ve let Matsujun beat you in terms of dietary preferences. The one way you can counteract this damage to your image is -” Here he scribbles something down and pokes at it officiously, “going _VE_ gan.”

“Let me see what you’ve written,” Nino demands evenly.

Aiba scratches his head, blinking shiftily. “Why do you -”

Nino snatches the clipboard from his hands. He’s written:

 

>   
> 
> **→** Are banana pheromones the answer to time travel?  
>  → Water basil plant  soon!!!  
>  → worm farms???  
>  → gluten???

 

 

By the time he puts it down, Aiba’s made his timely escape.“You can run but you can’t hide, Aiba Masaki!” Nino yells into the void.

The void yells back. “ _Sure I can, I’ve beaten Matsujun at Hide-and-Seek!_ ”

*

The Monday after, Sho enters their green room, magazine in one terrifying grip and the other jabbing at the title viciously.

“I didn’t join Johnny’s to become a vegetable boy, I don’t even know what’s the job scope for being one! And - _Why are memes?_ ” The sound he lets out next is a feverish wail in an octave that Nino hasn’t heard from Sho in more than seven years. It is a pained outcry of someone who’s spent every night in the last week reading almost all the Google search results about the origins of memes in addition to intermittent email barrages from one Aiba Masaki containing recent memes, far newer than he’s ever been equipped to handle.

The world screeches to a halt. Nino meets Leader’s eyes across the room. He’s blinking owlishly and Nino waits for reality to slowly slide into focus behind his eyes.

The magazine is on the floor now, bedraggled and torn in Sho’s distress. Knowing him, he probably sat on it on his way here, his anger trying to find some kind of outlet through his posterior. A steady air-conditioner draught makes a page tremble vertically. Something that resembles an awful lot of bare skin has fallen out from between the covers.

Nino frowns, tilting his head to get a better look and realises at the same moment as the rest that he’s looking at the tip of someone’s penis.

It is Sho’s _pornography_ , strategically hidden between the pages of a perfectly inconspicuous magazine. Nino knew this day was coming, the day that Arashi’s Sakurai Sho completed his transformation into one of those people who lurked in the _hentai_ section of online manga stores, and whose propriety throws off anyone even mildly suspecting his perverted tendencies.

Aiba shoves the slip back into the magazine, lingering for a too long moment that makes Nino elbow him in the side. Ever the saint, Nino helps Sho into an armchair and Jun is suddenly and miraculously nudging a mug of green tea into his frozen hands.

Ohno pats Sho’s hand comfortingly, motherly almost.

“It’s okay, Sho-chan. I don’t understand memes too. Last week Aiba-chan showed me this picture that had Matsujun’s face, YasaiJun? And someone had replaced his eyebrows with broccoli stalks.” Ohno says this like it’s supposed to be a relief. Maybe it is for some of them but Jun hisses “this is all your fault” by Nino’s ears.

Nino is selectively hard on hearing sometimes, so he doesn’t _quite_ catch it.

“Oh, Liam sent that one to me,” Aiba interrupts, eyes lit up. He fumbles with his phone for a moment before flipping it around to show his and Liam’s LINE chat history. It’s full of memes and gifs of animals doing stupid things.

“See?” he adds, the same time Jun goes “Liam? Liam _Payne_? As in One Direction’s Liam?”

“Yeah! He told me to drop the honorifics but it’s still quite weird, isn’t it? Anyway, Sho-chan - don’t worry if you don’t get memes, no one actually gets them. We all just laugh along. I’ll help you with your Zero segment if you want. I could even appear with my best impression of you - not my after-11pm one, promise.” Aiba is damn near flailing with the effort of trying to make things okay and Nino can’t help marvelling at how some things never change. All these years and Aiba still wears his bleeding heart on his sleeve.

No wonder wardrobe’s always so mad at him.

Sho nods miserably, releases a small deflated sound from between his teeth. He kind of caves in when Ohno wraps limp arms around him tightly, and lets Ohno rest his chin on his head. Jun situates himself behind the armchair, rubbing the back of Sho’s neck absently.

Aiba seems to take it as a cue for a group hug because he leans in enthusiastically, and drags Nino in by his wrist.

Nino catches hold of Jun, tugging him in too.

“Be careful of your make-up,” Jun cautions, but relents anyway. Some years ago, he’d be pulling away in two seconds flat, with that look of uncertainty he used to wear every time there was any sort open affection involved. Instead, Nino feels him nosing tenderly at the skin behind his ear.

“You’re getting soft, YasashiJun,”, Nino quips, just muffled by Leader’s shoulder in his mouth.

It’s a good thing they’re hugging so Jun doesn’t have sufficient knee room to kick him without toppling them all.

No one brings up the dick. Ever.

*  
One Direction is terrifyingly slippery slope. The sort you could fall down and break your neck on.

Nino unwittingly memorises all the words to _Girl Almighty_. It might have happened between watching Jun’s One Direction Concert DVD and realising he was belting out that song in shower. For two days it’s stuck in his head, creating some sort of a monstrous mash-up with _Kiss You_ and _Diana_. Once he finds himself strumming the latter’s chord progression for the ten minutes when he’d meant to be working on something new

Unsure about his murky and increasingly unhipster-like future, he starts quoting _My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations_ as replies for everything. It works for a while but after even that turns unironic, the world becomes a luckless place.

Nino wears his HARRY STYLES board everywhere, as if resigned to the hopelessness of the world. He also calls it a performance of his personal surrender to the capitalist machine. Sho’s no-nonsense penmanship lends a dimension of indifference to the set-up, making it quite inspired indeed. Aiba takes a lot of pictures and sends them to Liam who responds with images of Harry and a NINOMIYA KAZUNARI board doing various everyday things like going snack-shopping and visiting a Starbucks and signing autographs.

“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic,” Jun says one night, while he makes a grocery list. His voice is quiet, wondering and it’s his way of saying _why are you doing this_ and _I don’t feel the same about them as I do you_ and _I’ve loved you forever._

But it’s past 2 a.m. and Nino is half-asleep with the rhythm of pencil on paper scratching out _fettucini_ so he doesn’t hear it, only feels fingers easing his glasses from his ears and arms settling around his waist.

*

Meanwhile, YasaiJun goes viral.

It spawns and mutates into psychedelic photoshop masterpiece upon psychedelic photoshop masterpiece featuring Jun alongside (or as) a variety of vegetables, including an unassuming fennel, a head of cabbage with Ray-Bans™ and a pile of spinach in place of hair. The international community latches onto it with alarming speed despite not knowing the origin of that pun.

Nino is aghast and ashamed at having started something so painfully popular. It’s the stuff of spiced pumpkin nightmares, One Direction or God forbid, _Naruto_. Even the sheer thought of it makes him shudder.

Aiba tacks his favourites on the corkboard in their dressing room, switching them out every few days. The week where he chanced on a YasaiJun thread on girlschannel was a dark one.

Top Ten Hits feature “Favourite fashion trend of Autumn 2014 / spinach juice”, “Hottest Male Celeb Of The Year / Must be red peppers” and a manip in which someone had painstakingly photoshopped Jun’s rings and face onto some stalks of asparagus.

Steadily, Ohno fills Jun’s moles into every one of them.

*  
Jun gives up vegetarianism.

Nino, disgusted at his love for pop, listens to trance music loudly for four days in a bid to rid himself of that dirty lingering feeling of _boys only want love if it’s torture._

Needless to say, it doesn’t work.

(It does make everyone incredibly touchy though. During the time, Sho files five complaints at separate food establishments about their service and Ohno ruthlessly destroys three paper cups without meaning to. This spurs Aiba on to commence a discreet survey on the effects of trance music on Johnny’s idols, enlisting the invasive help of Inocchi and Miyake.)

*

On one hand, Nino has spent the longest time hating Jun’s music tastes with a soul-destroying and mind-numbing vengeance (although lately it is to the sounds of Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift.) On the other, it’s never been his musical sensibilities so much as having this figurative and philosophical upper hand.

He tells Nishikido the former when he sees him next.

Both of them are hunched over Subaru’s counter while Nino watches Ryo sketch out the shop idly on the protective plastic. It’s Friday. Subaru has only been open for half an hour and Nino’s already been there for two.

Subaru himself is in today, having arrived at over an hour ago in a snapback that read **NCY** and pants that look like he’d won them in a fight with a ferocious canine. He had waved a coffee cup cheerily and Nino had managed to annoy him into giving him a mikan from their store’s lifetime supply. Subaru had subsequently shown Nino all the new stuff they had got in during the week, gushing over a first edition of _London Calling_ and the new flumpool before retreating abruptly into the back to tally orders and stock.

 _Kaze Wo Atsumete_ is playing over the speakers and Nino finds himself humming along from time to time; snatches of music, the rise and swell of guitar and snare during the chorus and faint memories of the sun and sea during summer.

“Nino, it’s not like you to be so snobby about music,” Ryo comments, then pauses, holding up a thoughtful finger. “Wait no I take it back, it’s exactly like you to be such an asshole about music.”

Nino rolls his eyes and flips him off. “I don’t know what it is either.” Even though he knows _exactly_ what it is.

Ryo shrugs, shading in the grime on the windows and the dirty sunlight coming through. Then more sympathetically, “Want to do drinks tonight? Shota-kun is coming around, Baru’ll pull his head out of his ass for that.”

“Can’t, got an early call time tomorrow and rehearsals afterwards.”

“Hey, maybe -”

There’s a _ding!_ to signal a customer coming through the door at the bottom of the stairs.

“Maybe what?” Nino asks, nearly impatient as he slips off his seat. He hardly meets anyone who gives a fuck about Arashi in Subaru’s but it’s always better to be safe. Especially since he went to bed yesterday stewing in all of his Umbrella-Throwing Tendencies, having them surface now would only feed the anti-Sakurai rumour mill.

“Don’t be such a dick, okay,” Ryo says, oddly serious. He holds Nino’s gaze for a long moment before reclining in his chair, smirking. _Bastard_.

“Never,” Nino throws him a salute. He pockets his victory mikan and ducks into the back. “I’m leaving, Subaru! Good luck with Shota-kun later!”

Subaru lets out a loud put-upon sigh. There are fresh orange peels all over his sneakers and boxes of what look like important paperwork. “Get out, Ninomiya.”

Nino makes exaggerated kissing noises until he’s on the staircase and out of earshot.

*

Ryo’s words leave Nino with a cold feeling, lead at the bottom of his stomach.

On the train, he stands in the small space between a schoolboy and an old lady who touches his arm and tells him he looks awfully like her grandson. He smiles, says _thank you, he must be good-looking because it runs in the family._ It takes her a moment but she giggles with her hand over her mouth. Nino traces the deep crinkles of her eyes like a tourist with a train map.

At her station, she waves and bows. “Thank you, Ninomiya-san, you’re my family’s favourite member.”

Afterwards, uncertain, Nino even pauses to align his shoes with Jun’s in his genkan.

He plays Mario Kart for an hour while he waits on Jun’s fancy couch, winning the first race, coming in second for the next, and last for every subsequent one. He’s about to tear his hair out, but it’s then that Jun comes in through the door, kicking off his shoes and sighing.

Nino’s heart is tight in his throat.

He swallows thickly, attempts “oh hey, Nishikido keeps bugging me to bring you to Shibutani’s. He wants to meet you. Next time you’re free?”

He had been aiming for offhanded and casual. Instead, he hits something else entirely.

Jun leans down to line his perfectly shined shoes up. “Okay,” he replies, rolling his shoulders and smiling a little as he hangs his jacket up.

He gestures for Nino to budge over, then does a running leap onto the sofa screaming _FUNNASYI_ ~~~, and lands with his head next to Nino’s thighs. His shirt has ridden up when he pushes up for a kiss. Nino is laughing so hard that their noses bump instead, teeth clicking.

“You’re spoiling my groove,” he gripes after, even though his hands are in Jun’s hair and in the dips of his collarbones. His glasses rest on the coffee table, smudged with Jun’s clumsy, keen fingerprints.

Jun smells like make-up, hairspray and sun-kissed skin, Tokyo summers of Nino’s childhood. He thinks about their first kiss, in a back alley in Shinjuku, how Jun had bent into Nino, his toothy grin slipping off his face as his long fingers tucked themselves along the angles of Nino’s jaw. Nino had been instantly sober then, hyper-aware of his foot between Jun’s Italian shoes, his hands gripped around Jun’s unnecessarily fashionable tie and the way Jun tasted like _tonkotsu_ broth, rich and warm and salty around his tongue.

“Tough luck,” Jun answers now.

It’s a small mercy when he doesn’t point out that Nino’s never paused a game to say anything before.

*

In Nino’s mind, Shibutani’s and Arashi are completely different worlds altogether and he has made every effort to keep them that way.

Having Jun coming to Shibutani’s though is perhaps a gentler version of those two colliding. Surprisingly, Jun doesn’t complain, doesn’t ask _are we almost there_ as they change trains and walk from the station, shoulders knocking companionably.

At one stage, he points out a girl and a tiny boy with an ARAFES pin on his school uniform and makes Nino stop to say hi. It’s in all manners, uncharacteristic of him.

“Nobody’s going to believe them,” Nino says after they’ve parted and the boy has made them promise to call his mum too.

“We could greet her when Sho-kun is doing the greetings on Shiyagare. We could go ‘Good afternoon, Mum~~’ or something,” Jun waves exaggeratedly, donning a million-dollar smile. Sunlight glints off his shades, and Nino is vaguely reminded of Ace Attorney.

In the distance, someone waves back by mistake and Nino bursts out laughing. Jun punches his shoulder lightly, not enough to hide the fact that he’s clutching at his belly too.

The streets are calm on this work day, two in the afternoon with the sun high in the sky. Nino leads them past the Daiso, the dodgy combini on the corner. Up all five levels, he gets more and more nervous by the step, palms turned clammy and sticking on the handle of the sliding doors.

Nino bows with a magician’s flair, spreading his arms wide. “This is it,” he says, his throat clenching weirdly around the words. “The elusive Shibutani’s.”

Ryo’s disembodied voice greets them, drifting out from the back room while at the counter, Maruyama calls out welcome! The last few syllables are extra cheery when he looks up from balancing empty rolls of tape and notices it’s them. He catches Nino’s eyes and gestures frantically at Jun, mouthing _that’s J?? is that J???_ until Nino nods, ever so long-suffering.

The world drops away under Jun’s feet then, and Nino steps back to watch. He knows both sensations intimately after all; how it feels to stand before the towering shelves and under Jun’s gaze alike. After all Nino has lost so many afternoons to this place as well as Jun’s intent fingertips running down the length of his body.

Yesterday night he couldn’t sleep. When he did, he dreamt of endless, winding Tokyo streets and Jun at the end of them, outstretched hands an eternity away.

Now they’re here, and Nino doesn’t know how he expected Jun to react to this, to these walls and walls of vinyls in their dust jackets, so lovingly and meticulously curated that this could be a museum and them its patrons. He shoves his hands into his ( _Jun’s_ ) jumper pockets just so he doesn’t need to be reminded that they’ve turned to ice. Here, he feels cracked open, vulnerable, exposed, and it’s almost silly and naive the way Nino wants Jun to like _this_ , to like him. Somehow this place has become an extension of himself.

Jun chews on his bottom lip as he considers Frank Iero’s solo EP, his thumb rubbing at the worn border of the SIGNED sticker and it hits Nino then, a hushed revelation that leaves him reeling and scrambling for purchase.

Jun is still here.

The man who knows the exact number of records he owns at any time, who has given him back massages on bad days and made him drink spinach juice on good ones. It’s almost like someone has waxed him without warning on national television, left his skin red and stinging with the force. At least that’s what Nino imagines it would be like, as if he has actually told an interviewer that his biggest regret isn’t all the times he’s left the house unnecessarily, but that when he was seven, he’d broken his sister’s favourite pen out of malice.

There are some things you learn to protect growing up in the public eye. There’s always been that give-and-take but this - _him_ in the corner of Nino’s safe haven, tip-toeing to reach a record on the highest shelf. _This_ , is completely non-negotiable. This is what Nino will continue to skip over during interviews, questions directed at what’s your ideal date and what’s your ideal type. He will continue to smirk and tease and lead on, _insufferably_ because this is so much more fragile in the sunlight.

Carefully, he retreats to the counter, hoisting himself up onto the spare stool and pinching one of Maru’s tape rolls just to be a pain. Also maybe so he’ll have something to occupy himself from Jun’s presence just outside his peripheral vision. The words LAME has been scribbled onto the plastic in smudged marker, next to the lyrics for _GUTS!_. Nino chuckles; Nishikido must have been really bored.

Ryo emerges shortly, his arms laden with records and his hands caked with dust. Maru has wandered off, probably to marvel at _Matsumoto Jun!!!_ without lurking too near. Nino’s warned him about Jun’s violent tendencies. He had made a necklace out of raffia string and those empty rolls, writing a character of his name on each one and wearing them so they spelt out YO, MARUYAMA.

“I told him you’ve been bugging me to meet him,” is the first thing Nino says as he helps Ryo with some of the discs. He holds eye contact resolutely, satisfied when Ryo looks away first.

“He probably knew you were bluffing,” Ryo points out, tone indifferent though his small smile is hidden in the shadow of his fringe.

“Impossible, I am after all, the award-winning Hollywood actor Ninomiya Kazunari.” Nino announces grandly, thrusting his arms out into the air triumphantly while Nishikido rolls his eyes to a frankly miraculous angle.

The truth settles comfortably, unspoken over them.

“Help me with this. Subaru’s not here today, he hasn’t been around much since Shota-kun.” He wriggles his eyebrows meaningfully. “At least I hope they’ve made up, I’m sick of all that passive-aggressive bullshit, seriously. Anyway, these are from the days we had a sample pile and people left records in all the wrong sleeves. I’ve been trying to reorganise them for ever but -” he makes a frustrated sound.

Nino kicks out an apathetic rhythm on the side of the counter. “I _told_ him not to do that,” but he grabs one anyway, pulling the soundtrack for _Hana and Alice_ out of a BUMP OF CHICKEN sleeve. “Oh, I like this one. Mind if I?” Ryo shrugs so he hops off his seat and replaces the analogfish record inside, pulling the needle onto the grooves.

All of a sudden, Jun is there, his fingers clasped loosely around Nino’s wrist then tugging gently.

“I need to speak with you,” and then to Nishikido, “Can I borrow your back room for a moment?” Nino’s ears are full of the music, single lonesome piano notes slowly swelling into detached chords, then Maru’s voice going “J is pretty cool in real life, huh” as the heavy curtain closes them in.

“Please don’t be going all shoujo manga on me,” Nino manages but only barely. It’s difficult to make sense with Jun so close and in the shadows of this room where Nino has watched Ryo and Subaru argue over clothes before.

Everyone in the country knows Jun’s penchant for fairy tales. But this could very well be a high school romance, what with Nino’s breathlessness and Jun’s fingers hesitating over his hips.

“Nino,” Jun starts, then frowns. He exhales, slow and measured. Nino can see him holding the words up in his head against the light, the order, the tone of his voice. “First off, you wish. And second, thank you. I know how much this means to you, and - because of that, now to me too.”

Time draws out around them, stretches thin until it pours through Nino’s ears like quicksand, one long thread pulling the passage of minutes tight around them while the world continues to tick on. Neither of them move.

Nino breathes out prudently, counting output against seconds. Downstairs the bell rings.

“You mean more to me than this, _all this_.” He fixes his eyes steadily on the angle of Jun’s cheek, where acne had left scars before and where he’s laid his hands a thousand times. Contrary to popular belief, declarations of love are not his strong suit. He meets Jun’s eyes momentarily before darting away again. He sighs exasperatedly. “I admit, Zayn is pretty great.”

Jun’s lips curl and Nino distracts himself with the mole on his bottom lip, his beauty mark. He has never told anyone but he always aims for it when they kiss.

“And I’m also glad you’re here,” he adds after another moment albeit a bit reluctantly.

“You’re the worst at talking about emotions you know that,” Jun murmurs, stepping closer.

Nino doesn’t pull away. “Says Doctor J, Experienced Knight In Shining Armour M.D.. Some of us use our mouths for more practical things.”

“Oh really,” Jun flirts, infuriating to the last, so Nino pushes himself on the balls of his feet and kisses him. Jun leans in immediately, his body curling to meet Nino’s, grin matched with grin and the tips of their shoes touching.

Jun always kisses single-mindedly, deeply and maddeningly as if Nino is an alphabet he’s trying to learn with the broad plane of his tongue and studious fingertips. Nino’s seen the margins of his scripts, and that’s how he imagines it is laid out in Jun’s head, his softest parts and hardest angles, all scribbled with side notes and _at this point_ and _make sure you_. Nino links hands around Jun’s neck, yielding to Jun’s arms under his jacket.

“They’ll know,” Jun says suddenly, pulling away. He gestures with furtive eye movements. It’s not stealthy at all, and Nino would feel bad about laughing if Jun wasn’t quite so warm against his cheek.

“They already do, why do you think Ryo was so indifferent to seeing you here. Dragging me into this room all serious and urgent-like. They’re good people.” Jun relaxes against him; Nino sees the understanding sink in.

“I thought that was just his face, like Leader’s, you know, stoic.” Jun shrugs, nonchalant tone a contrast to his hands squeezing Nino’s and his thumb rubbing comforting circles on his wrists.

At that moment, Ryo bellows “you guys better not be having sex in there. God knows, how difficult semen is to rub out of the walls, believe me I have tried.” In reply, Nino lets out a moan quite worth of a porn Oscar, if he thinks so himself. Jun is laughing so hard he’s only upright by his hand on Nino’s shoulders.

“Fuck off, Ninomiya,” Nishikido is probably flipping them off right now, from Maruyama’s hooting guffaws. Then his gruff voice adds “you can come out now if you’re done tainting everything good and holy, a bunch of college kids just came and left without buying anything.”

“You’re very welcome,” Nino says. The fluorescent lights of the store make him squint. When he feels Jun’s fingers searching his out, Nino closes the distance and links their hands together.

 _Round Dance_ is just ending.

“Drinks next week? I’ll pay,” Nino offers. Ryo blinks incredulously, exaggerated.

“Only if you don’t bail on me again.” To Jun, he nods with the gravitas of an old man giving approval for his future son-in-law. “You’re good for our Kazunari.”

The leaves are gold outside, littering gutters and streets with blinding reds. Just before they reach the bottom of the stairs, Jun halts and Nino walks into him before he can stop. The worn carpet scuffs his soles.

“I love you,” Jun turns. They’re eye to eye now, and Nino feels like his insides have decided to do some impromptu redecorating. It doesn’t take much for him to touch Jun’s lips with his own for a single moment. It’s chaste, deliberate and Nino’s head is so heavy with just how much he can’t say.

“You’re alright too, I guess.”

That’s all he’s willing to give, apart for that entire notebook of stanzas he’s scribbled between dance rehearsals and staff meetings, hardly-songs about the way Jun sings _One Love_ in the shower, the heat of his eyes on Nino’s skin during concerts as well as every single one of Jun’s favourite pasta toppings.

It might be about time to complete one.

“I have a problem,” Nino will say on air later. Everyone will turn, expecting something life-changing. Jun’s eyes will inadvertently find his so when Nino says “I know all the words to at least five One Direction songs now,” he’ll know that the storm has passed.

 

 

 

 

**Epilogue**

Nino still dreams of New York City.

He dreams of small laneways crowded with creatives, romanticised futures stuck deep in the dirty slush of melting snow, and old and new side by side, connected by decades-old fire escapes. He dreams that they meet there. Jun and him, between one crowded sidewalk and the next, spilling coffee on the snow in his haste to get ahead. Nino wears rolled-up pants on top of his Doc Martens and Jun is wrapped up in his billion scarves. When they kiss, Jun puts his coffee-warmed hands in the pockets of Nino’s trousers and he feels the heat all the way to his bones.

In the morning, he wakes up with Tokyo outside his windows, sunlight glowing over the edges of her roofs. The scents of autumn gives way to winter on his mind. Jun’s mouth is open over Nino’s bare shoulder, a trail of dried drool leads from the corner of his lips. Nino snorts; not even national fashionista Matsumoto Jun can sleep stylishly.

Then his fingers twitch in Nino’s hair and Nino likes to think it’s in the sense-memory of how they had kissed under the covers yesterday night, lazily, leisurely, until Jun had fallen asleep with his hand curled over Nino’s hip.

“Jun-kun,” he says later, when it’s past noon and Nino’s finished compiling his Pokedex. Now he wants a hug.

Jun blinks slowly, like he’s getting used to the world, coughs once, hard to dislodge the night in his throat. His eyes are clearer than they were yesterday, bright with the sun coming through the billowing curtains. Soon they’ll have to get up and catch up with everyone else. Jun will spend too long choosing a hat and Nino will pretend he’s not filching yet another one of Jun’s t-shirts.

“Hey,” says Nino. “You’re not allowed to be angry. It’s 1pm and I made you coffee.” They’re not on TV now so he lets himself smile as cheesily as he fucking wants, smitten with the way Jun leans into the palm of his hand.

Jun frowns. Then he groans dramatically into a pillow, flopping over onto Nino heavily.

“You’re My Girl In The Sunny Place,” he mumbles, muffled by Nino’s chest. In reply, Nino rucks up Jun’s shirt and presses his frozen fingers into the small of his back until he’s yelping and wide-awake.

*

“So, is it Harry Styles or Zayn Malik that you like?” Ohno asks after another of Jun’s spiels about the former’s _professionalism_ , and Jun’s face goes so hot that he might burst into flames at a moment’s notice.

“Well,” he says and then sits down abruptly. “Well.” He tries again, mouth working around a bunch of words that refuse to place themselves in order.

Nino looks up from his DS absently, clearly zoned out of the conversation. Jun considers the marshtomp in the reflection of his glasses before Nino interrupts. “It’s definitely Zayn. I mean, remember the way J was all goopy when they were on Shiyagare.”

Aiba is kicking off his shoes for some reason. Jun isn’t sure he wants to know, but he’s chiming in too. “I’d never seen that look on Matsujun’s face before -”

“And never again.” Jun snaps, sharper than he meant to.

Sho shuffles his many newspapers, also toeing off his shoes. It must be catching.

“It’s okay, we’ll still like Matsujun no matter who you like,” Ohno says and promptly falls asleep on Jun’s arm.

Nino starts humming _All About That Bass_.

 

**fin.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://beertoface.livejournal.com/10201.html).
> 
> Extended author's notes [here](http://beertoface.livejournal.com/9732.html).


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